Malnutrition In Nigeria Essay

In this twenty-first century, agriculture remains fundamental to economic growth, poverty alleviation, improvement to rural livelihood and environmental sustainability (World Bank, 2007). Three quarters of the world’s poor live in rural areas, particularly in Asia and Africa (Ravallion, Chen and Sangraula, 2007) and depend on agricultural as their primary source of livelihood. The success of agricultural livelihoods depends on the health of the workforce and agricultural production systems can have impacts on workers health, nutrition and well-being. And the labour market consequences of poor health are likely to be more serious for the poor, who are more likely to suffer from severe health problems and to be working in jobs for which strength and therefore good health are required (Strauss and Thomas, 1998).

Agriculture is the largest component of the rural economy of Nigeria; it is the principal source of food and livelihood and the main trust of many Nigerians as is the case in most of the sub-Saharan African Countries. Over 80% of the foods needs of Nigerians are

The World Health Organization identifies malnutrition as “the single most important risk factor for disease.” In developing countries, poor nutrition is a massive problem making people more susceptible to diseases. A study on the effect of nutrition on labour productivity relationship using total farm output as the measure of productivity. A Cobb-Douglas production function was estimated to test the hypothesis that, farm output is influenced by effective family and hired labour hours, variable non-labour inputs, fixed capital, and land. It was found that calorie intake had a significant positive effect on farm labour productivity with a calorie intake had a significant positive effect on farm labour productivity with a calorie output elasticity of 0.34 at the sample mean (Strauss,